Scope and Content Note
The papers of Alexander Jeffrey McKelway (1866-1918) span the years 1814-1942, with the bulk of the material concentrated from 1900 to 1918. The collection includes correspondence, telegrams, speeches, articles, notes and drafts of a biography of St. Clair McKelway, longtime editor of the Brooklyn Eagle and uncle of Alexander, financial papers, printed matter, and a scrapbook of obituary notices and condolence letters.
The papers relate primarily to child labor reform, particularly McKelway's role as Southern secretary of the National Child Labor Committee. Other topics include women's suffrage, prohibition, national political affairs, the Hoke Smith-Georgia Historical Association correspondence of 1917, and McKelway family matters. Correspondents include Carrie Chapman Catt, Josephus Daniels, Norman Hapgood as editor of Harper's Weekly, Florence Kelley, Henry F. Keenan, Amos Pinchot, Gifford Pinchot, Theodore Roosevelt, Joseph P. Tumulty, and Woodrow Wilson. In the family correspondence are boyhood letters of Benjamin Mosby McKelway, editor of the Washington Star, and other papers pertaining to the life of St. Clair McKelway.